The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is the largest public research university in the city of Chicago and one of only six academic medical centers in the country that house a complete complement of health science colleges (Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Public Health, Dentistry and Allied Health Sciences). The medical school is the largest and most diverse in the nation and the entire health sciences center has an explicit mandate to serve and care for the diverse population of the city. Total NIH sponsored research expenditures on the health sciences campus are significant. Despite this formidable presence, and despite many impressive research programs both in basic science and in community outreach, the medical center has not developed a multidisciplinary home for clinical and translational research. Accordingly, the goal of this planning grant is to identify and overcome institutional barriers that have prevented such an entity from emerging and in so doing, to develop the infrastructure necessary to grow such an enterprise. It is our hope that this activity will lead to measurable successes in the education, training and recruitment of translational and clinical investigators and in the generation of research activities and funding related to this enterprise and that it will result in the successful submission of an NIH - CTSA grant application within the next 2-3 years. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]